Neglected West is an all too familiar story
THE l ate John Healy ’s book, Death of an Irish Town, first published in 1968 andre published in 1988 under the ti tl e ‘ No One Shouted Stop’ immediately came to my mind over the week-end in the aftermath of Micheal Martin’ s new government which doesn’ t include a single senior minister from the NorthWest, West and Mid West.
John Healy’s book could have been written about any town in the west such has been the deprivation of the region for decades. This new government not only has told us we aren’t on its radar but the new Taoiseach has basically told us all to get lost too. It seems the West will always be a region that Dublin centric governments will never care about.
Economic reports of the past 20 years have outlined the lack of investment in the region compared to the east coast and this imbalanced scenario looks like it’s going to played out for the lifetime of this government. The anger in Sligo and elsewhere in the North West and West is palatable and who could blame anyone for this?
The senior ministers appointed by Martin will have one agenda and that is to look after their own constituencies in the couple of years they will have their posts before Leo Varadkar becomes Taoiseach once more and there’s a raft of changes.
They will not listen to any backbench TD’s from the North West. It’ ll be like trying to get through to the eir customer service phoneline, impossible!
What this government will do is to accelerate the numbers of young people leaving the West for the East coast.
And, once air travel resumes, it will be the USA and Australia as destinations for thousands of young people from the West.
The Taoiseach has single handedly said there’s no future in the region. He hasn’t displayed any confidence so why should our young people?
Of course over the next day or two we might see a junior minister to keep us happy but everyone will know this is tokenism.
The real power is at the cabinet table and Sligo and the West will have no say, hoping for crumbs as usual. The government will throw us the odd morsal from time to time. We might get a greenway or two dressed up as investment that will create hundreds of jobs.
As much as I like exercise and getting out and about, real, sustainable input would be the reopening of the Western Rail Line between Sligo and Galway.
The same old economists will be trotted out to say it would be a poor investment but that’s what they said about Ireland West Airport in Knock which took the vision and drive of a parish priest, Monsignor James Horan to build. He didn’t stand on ceremony and wouldn’t take no for an answer. He knew the potential in the West and that all it needed was proper investment in jobs and infrastructure.
Has Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael signed its own death warrant in the West over the shape of the new Government?
Both parties want to be strong in the capital and major urban cities like Cork but the vast region of the West and North West will not forget this coalition make-up for a long time.
Sinn Féin will have most to gain. Had they been in power this time there’s no doubt that Pearse Doherty (Donegal) and Martin Kenny (Sligo/Leitrim) would have been in serious running for cabinet posts.
The electorate in the region will seriously weigh up voting for Fianna Fáil ever again. What’s the point when they are going to ignored?
In Sligo/Leitrim FF will be lucky to hold on to one seat next time around. There may well be two SF TDs elected.
FF is embarrassingly split at local level over the election of the County Council cathaorileach. Indeed, Cllr Paul Taylor could be on the ticket at the next general election but South Sligo won’t be enough to elect him and he’ ll need votes in Sligo town but the electorate there won’t forget his voting against longstanding Independent Cllr Declan Bree and going against a pact entered previously.
Another thing this coalition has signalled is an end to the influence of independent TDs. The word from the outgoing government is that they were fed up with them, were always never sure they wouldn’t bail when the going got tough and overall were too demanding. No surprise no deal was done with any of them this time around.